


All the Silver Moons

by Phanicmode



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Ice Cream, Karkat Vantas - Freeform, M/M, Pesterlog, They talk about Bro, dave strider - Freeform, mentions of abuse, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 15:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5545343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phanicmode/pseuds/Phanicmode
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Dave has a dream, ice cream is eaten, and Karkat comforts Dave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Silver Moons

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate summary: in which the author can't seem to write any stories that don't involve sleeping

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  carcinoGeneticist [CG]

TG: bro  
TG: bro  
TG: broooooooooooo  
TG: i have a question for you  
TG: cmon man answer  
TG: its some really important shit that needs to be talked about right now immediately  


carcinoGeneticist [CG] is an idle chum!  


TG: alright fine ill just talk it out to myself  
TG: so like  
TG: do you ever have just like normal dreams anymore  
TG: cause as a kid i always had these fucking horrible nightmares that basically just sucked  
TG: rose said it was because of horrorterrors or some shit and tbh im not that surprised those things are the fucking worst  
TG: but sometimes id still have normal dreams  
TG: you know like freaky weird shit that wouldnt happen in real life  
TG: and ever since weve been on the meteor im always either not dreaming or in a dream bubble living it up with doomed versions of all of us  
TG: shit on further inspection living it up is not the right phrase to use right there god damn  
TG: anyway  
TG: last night i had an actual dream and it kinda freaked me out and i wanted to tell you about it  
CG: WHAT HAPPENED?  
TG: oh see now look who fucking answers  
TG: geez karkat do I have to pour my fucking soul out for you to get a damn response around here  
CG: SHUT UP ASSHOLE JUST TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED IN THIS FUCKING DREAM  
CG: IT MUST HAVE REALLY FREAKED YOU OUT TO GET YOU TO TELL ME ABOUT IT  
CG: I AM TRYING TO BE A SUPPORTIVE FRIEND HERE  
CG: LOOK, HERE I AM. THE EPITOME OF HUMAN FRIENDSHIP  
CG: I WELCOME THE ONCOMING SHITSTORM OF YOUR IDIOTIC BRAINSPONGE  
CG: JUST GET ON WITH IT  
TG: alright man chill just  
TG: dont laugh okay  
TG: so i was back on earth right  
TG: and i was in some normal high school  
TG: which is weird enough as it is because I legit never even went to school i basically just had to figure everything out on my own  
TG: anyway  
TG: this school is like  
TG: completely empty  
TG: and the walls were all mirrors???  
TG: and then i was walking down this really fucking long hallway and there was no noise like my feet didnt make a single fucking peep it was like easter had come early and all those scrumptious poultry marshmallows were too busy being devoured by rabid sugar high two year olds with their disgustingly sticky fingers  
TG: and when i finally got to the end of the hallway there was this super high mirror like forty feet or something ridiculous like that  
TG: but this one seemed kinda like a window I dont know but there was someone on the other side that looked just as confused as me and kept mirroring my actions and doing the same things as me  
TG: but the thing that freaked me out so much is that it wasn’t even me  
TG: it didn’t look like me  
TG: okay it looked kind of like me but to be even more honest than i apparently fucking am it looked a lot like my bro and somehow thats way way worse  
TG: and then the mirror started cracking and shattering and shit  
TG: and the guy on the other side started reaching through and i woke up  
CG: SHIT  
TG: yeah  
TG: sorry for dumping that on you  
TG: i mean i could have told rose but i am really not im the mood for her vampiric lesbian psychoanalysis shit right now  
TG: shed probably just tell me it means im gay and then leave to snog her alien girlfriend  
CG: I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY  
CG: DO YOU THINK IT WAS YOUR POST SCRATCH BRO?  
CG: THE ONE FROM THE NEW SESSION I MEAN  
TG: it might have been  
TG: just seeing his face after all these years sort of fucked me up you know?  
TG: like id just been forcibly dragged back into that shitty apartment  
TG: ive barely even thought about him since i saw that sword stuck in his chest three years ago  
TG: didnt really want to think about it  
TG: you know im  
TG: i think im just gonna go  
TG: sorry for unloading all of this on you man  
TG: youre a real pal for putting up with it for this long  
CG: WAIT DAVE  


turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering  carcinoGeneticist [CG]

Karkat leaned back in his chair, letting himself slump down as he stared at his screen with confused eyes. Had he said something wrong? It wasn’t like he’d said much in general, just let Dave talk his mouth off like he tends to do. His sign off had been abrupt, midsentence. It wasn’t like him to leave without a chance to drop his vocabulary on listening ears. And Karkat was definitely listening.

It was an unusual situation to be in, Karkat had to admit. He hadn’t heard about any of the other humans having un-dream bubble related dreams, and he certainly hadn’t had many himself. He rarely slept anyway. But not only that, Dave’s dream was just straight out weird. He wasn’t really sure what happened at high school, except from what he’d learned watching earth teen romance movies. Dave certainly hadn’t been in one before. What was the significance of that setting? Of those mirrored hallways? Of the boy behind the glass?

And why did Dave leave so suddenly, like he had to stop himself from saying too much?

Karkat sat bolt upright when the realization hit him. God, he was such an idiot. Dave was upset, it’s so obvious now. He’s probably sitting in that block of his, alone and feeling miserable. He’s probably freaking out about losing his cool in front of Karkat, despite their self-proclaimed broship and the fact that the two of them knew each other like they knew their own minds. Karkat could feel his heart break for the pathetic little human, just a little bit. He knew what he had to do.

As he passed the doorway to the commons room, he stuck his head inside just on the very slim chance that Dave would be in there. But he was not, just like Karkat thought would be the case. Instead, he went over and captchalogued a couple pillows from the seating receptacle, took a carton of ice cream from the meal vault (or “fridge” as the humans called it, but Karkat disliked to sound so uppity) and after much deliberation, decided to captchalogue a chair from the main table as well. One could never have too many chairs on hand.

And as he padded softly down the dimly yellow lit corridors, he wondered if he would even be welcome. Did Dave just want to be left alone? What if that was what he meant, that he just didn’t want to talk to Karkat anymore? Was Karkat overreacting? Would he make it worse?

But Karkat didn’t have enough time to talk himself out of it, and instead was still thinking of reasons not to be there as he absentmindedly pounded on Dave’s door several times.

“Who is it?” a tired voice called. Karkat winced a little.

“It’s me. Um, Karkat.”

The door opened slowly and quietly and a Dave like no Dave he had ever seen was holding it ajar. His face was still slightly wet and puffy, which yes, of course was new, but what was really strange was the fact that he still had that poker face on. The one that said “yeah I’m too cool for you to see my emotions have fun guessing what I’m looking at asshole yeah you thought.” But it had never looked so, so fake in Karkat’s eyes. He realized Dave had asked him a question.

“What are you doing here?”

Wordlessly, Karkat decaptchalogued his cookies and cream and held it out to him raising his eyebrows. Dave looked down at it, then back at Karkat, then back down again, and suddenly Karkat had an armful of Strider. Karkat could feel him shivering and shaking through the fabric of his sweater and shushed him lightly, leading them to the bed where they could sit across from each other cross legged with the ice cream between them. They stayed silent for a few minutes, shoveling ice cream into their mouths.

“I’m sorry that I’m acting like this.” Karkat looks up at Dave with his spoon still halfway out of his mouth and quickly swallows. Dave looked so despondent, gazing so hard into his red pajama pants that you would think he was trying to set them aflame. “I don’t know why it’s bothering me so much. It’s not even that weird of a dream but it’s somehow so unsettling. Seeing his face again. And ever since I woke up this morning…” He shuts himself up again. His hands were twisted tightly into the sheets, making spirals and swirls and pulling them so taut with his repressed emotion that Karkat could feel it from where he was sitting.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

Dave sighed and slumped against the wall behind him. One hand tiredly rubbed at his eye from beneath his shades as he tried to come up with the words to describe what he was feeling.

“Well…. Like I said earlier, I hadn’t really thought about Bro for a long time. But ever since this morning when I woke up I just can’t get everything he ever did out of my head. And it’s just so confusing because like, I fucking idolized that guy when I was growing up. All I ever wanted to be was to be like him. And Snow I realize that he was seriously messed up, and an all-around terrible person, and that the worst thing I could ever be would be to be like Bro. It’s like the carpet of the world I grew up in just got ripped out from under my feet, y’know?”

“He was never around. I guess he taught me to always be on my toes, to expect the unexpected or some bullshit like that, but all it ever really made me do was not want to trust anyone. I always had to be on my guard, because he liked to sneak up on me and attack me. And he never really… took care of me? I pretty much had to find my own food. I mean he kept goddamn swords in the fridge, how messed up is that?!” Dave was breathing a bit more ragged than he had been.

Karkat had never felt so unKarkat like for such a long time. For the second instance in one day, he was speechless. From what he was piecing together from Dave right now, hushed sibling arguments with Rose, and the overall feeling of dread that washed over Dave’s face as he spoke, Bro was probably an abusive asshole. He remembered seeing Terezi’s monitor back when they were trolling the humans through time, seeing this tiny boy fighting with an older male in ridiculous shades. He’d thought it was some crazy human tradition. But no. Dave was hurt by that man. Did that explain why Dave never let him ask about the scars all over his body? Or why the first time Karkat had tried to hug him, Dave flipped out and thought he was being attacked? Karkat wordlessly reached out an untangled one of Dave’s hands from the flippant groping of the sheet to hold it softly in his own.

“Hey.” Dave looked up at him. “I won’t pretend to understand everything you’ve gone through. I don’t want to patronize you like that. But… fuck. You can’t keep stuff like that inside you all the time. So if you ever… want to talk about it, you know I’m always going to be there right? It’s not annoying or rude, and it doesn’t bother me. I just want to help you.” He tried for a comforting small smile, and pretended not to notice the tear streaking down to Dave’s now watery smile. “Now eat up, I didn’t bring you this ice cream for it to melt on your bed.”

He picked up his spoon and planned on taking a victorious swipe of frozen goodness, but his dominant hand was wrapped in Dave’s own, and his coordination was less than admirable even on his best of days. Long story short, he completely missed his mouth, the doofus, and spilled ice cream straight down his shirt.

Dave made an odd sort of choking sound and Karkat looked up at him with wide, surprised eyes and that was enough for him. Dave cracked up, laughing so hard he doubled over and was gasping for breath. Karkat couldn’t help but giggle a little at himself. Dave was incoherent, he couldn’t even form a sentence. He just kept guffawing and pointing at the stain on Karkat’s jumper. Karkat pushed him lightly with both hands, but Dave caught them and pulled him over so they were both leaning against the wall and against each other, basically cuddling. Ah well, Karkat thought blushing, we could get more ice cream in the morning.

Neither of them dreamed that night.

**Author's Note:**

> This started as just a practice to get used to formatting and writing pesterlogs, but it quickly got out of hand.


End file.
